U.S. Plans to Cut Its Staff By Half At Iraq Embassy

By TIM ARANGO

Published: February 8, 2012

BAGHDAD -- Less than two months after American troops left, the State Department is preparing to slash by as much as half the enormous diplomatic presence it had planned for Iraq, a sharp sign of declining American influence in the country.

Officials in Baghdad and Washington said that Ambassador James F. Jeffrey and other senior State Department officials were reconsidering the size and scope of the embassy, where the staff has swelled to nearly 16,000 people, mostly contractors.

The expansive diplomatic operation and the $750 million embassy building, the largest of its kind in the world, were billed as necessary to nurture a postwar Iraq on its shaky path to democracy and establish normal relations between two countries linked by blood and mutual suspicion. But the Americans have been frustrated by what they see as Iraqi obstructionism and are now largely confined to the embassy because of security concerns, unable to interact enough with ordinary Iraqis to justify the $6 billion annual price tag.

The swift realization among some top officials that the diplomatic buildup may have been ill advised represents a remarkable pivot for the State Department, in that officials spent more than a year planning the expansion and that many of the thousands of additional personnel have only recently arrived.

Michael W. McClellan, the embassy spokesman, said in a statement, ''Over the last year and continuing this year the Department of State and the Embassy in Baghdad have been considering ways to appropriately reduce the size of the U.S. mission in Iraq, primarily by decreasing the number of contractors needed to support the embassy's operations.''

Mr. McClellan said the number of diplomats -- currently about 2,000 -- was also ''subject to adjustment as appropriate.''

To make the cuts, he said the embassy was ''hiring Iraqi staff and sourcing more goods and services to the local economy.''

After the American troops departed in December, life became more difficult for the thousands of diplomats and contractors left behind. Convoys of food that had been escorted by the United States military from Kuwait were delayed at border crossings as Iraqis demanded documentation that the Americans were unaccustomed to providing.

Within days, the salad bar at the embassy dining hall ran low. Sometimes there was no sugar or Splenda for coffee. On chicken-wing night, wings were rationed at six per person. Over the holidays, housing units were stocked with Meals Ready to Eat, the prepared food for soldiers in the field.

At every turn, the Americans say, the Iraqi government has interfered with the activities of the diplomatic mission, one they grant that the Iraqis never asked for or agreed upon. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki's office -- and sometimes even the prime minister himself -- now must approve visas for all Americans, resulting in lengthy delays. American diplomats have had trouble setting up meetings with Iraqi officials.

For their part, the Iraqis say they are simply enforcing their laws and protecting their sovereignty in the absence of a working agreement with the Americans on the embassy.

''The main issue between Iraqis and the U.S. Embassy is that we have not seen, and do not know anything about, an agreement between the Iraqi government and the U.S.,'' said Nahida al-Dayni, a lawmaker and member of Iraqiya, a largely Sunni bloc in Parliament.

Expressing a common sentiment among Iraqis, she added: ''The U.S. had something on their mind when they made it so big. Perhaps they want to run the Middle East from Iraq, and their embassy will be a base for them here.''

Those suspicions have been reinforced by two murky episodes, one involving four armed Americans on the streets of Baghdad that Iraqi officials believe were Central Intelligence Agency operatives and another when an American helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing because of an unspecified mechanical failure on the outskirts of the capital on the banks of the Tigris River.

''The aircraft that broke down raised many questions about the role of Americans here,'' said Ammar al-Hakim, the leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a leading Shiite political party and social organization. ''So what is the relationship? We're still waiting for more information.''

The current configuration of the embassy, a 104-acre campus with adobe-colored buildings, is actually smaller than the original plans that were drawn up at a time when officials believed that a residual American military presence would remain in Iraq beyond 2011. For instance, officials once planned for a 700-person consulate in the northern city of Mosul, but it was scrapped for budgetary reasons.

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari met with Mr. Jeffrey last week to discuss, among other things, the size of the American presence here. ''The problem is with the contractors, with the security arrangements,'' Mr. Zebari said. Mr. Jeffrey will leave the task of whittling down the embassy to his successor, as officials said he is expected to step down in the coming weeks.